10 Themes Challenge: What if?
by Hydok
Summary: Figured I might as well get on board the train. Now up: “It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Her voice was steady, and it wasn’t an act. #6 Promise
1. Chapter 1

A ten themes challenge that I found on Livejournal. These are the themes and, hopefully, a little preview of what I'm going to write.

**1. Cell**

Secrets that we hold close can destroy us.

**2 Deviate **

Everyone wears a mask or two.

**3. Enclosed **

The white-shadowed figure snarled at them, trapped in a corner, red seeping from between his fingers.

**4. Devil **

"I'll tell you in the afterlife." And the little boy grinned.

**5. Ocean **

Kaito knows that he has the most irrational fear in the world.

**6. Promise **

"He'll come back! He said he would!"

**7. Lost **

He wasn't lost. He was just a little off track.

**8. Beginnings **

Like father, like son.

**9. Snare **

She knew she was hooked.

**10. Silence**

A bullet shattered the laughter, and there was silence.


	2. Who?

**Title: **Who?**  
Fandom: **Detective Conan/Magic Kaito**  
Characters: **Kudo Shinichi, Edogawa Conan, Kuroba Kaito**  
Prompt: **Lost (#7)**  
Word Count: **325**  
Rating: **K**  
Summary: **They kept calling him "Shinichi"…

They kept calling him "Shinichi", and eventually it began to fit, like it was who he always was, who he always had been. It really was all he'd even known. But there were times when he didn't remember _them_, didn't remember the name they had given him. Times when he would remember other things, things that Shinichi had never seen or know. Things that made them stare at him like it was all a mistake… He was someone else, someone without a name. So he stopped saying them, because he _was_ Shinichi, he _had_ to be Shinichi.

They went to Tropical Land one day. And they had a wonderful time. Until the closing fireworks. And he didn't say what they reminded him of. A feeling. Fireworks…and falling… or being scared to fall… because if he didn't make it back, _she_ would figure it all out.

Then one day the loud girl showed off a pearl. Family heirloom or something. Another faded memory-feeling. Fireworks again. Was he setting them off or just watching? And white… swimming away from the boat… running to a boat, clutching something, because _she _needed it… words came to his lips unbidden. "…nothing but a critic…"

And the little-girl-who-wasn't-a-little-girl said that she was doing everything she could. "…turn back the flow of time…" "…Pandora's box…" And a jacket that made him laugh? Or was that the other blond?

Glasses, something about glasses… Or was it just one lens, his namesake leaf brushing his cheek as he fell without fear?

Then there was a dream that came back again… again… and he was soaring away, white wings… or was he just watching from the rooftop, too small to do anything about it?

There was something there, something else, something other. He knew, even if they didn't, even if he didn't let it show, even though… no, _especially because _it scared him. Because he was Kudo Shinichi. Poker Face. Completely and totally lost.

**Author's Notes: **… so I read a couple random Amnesia!Conan fics, then I read something else cough DC 646 cough, then this fell out of my brain. So… this is a bit odd… Some kind of Kudo and Kuroba get fused into one entity thing? And he (they?) only remembers bits and pieces of being Conan and KID, but not when he was Shinichi or Kaito. No, I'm not on drugs…

... you know... this was the one that I had planned on being the funny one...


	3. Moth to Flame

**Title: **Moth/Flame**  
Fandom: **Detective Conan/Magic Kaito**  
Characters: **Kuroba Kaito, Someone Else**  
Prompt: **Deviant (#2)  
**Word Count: **452  
**Rating: **T+ **  
Summary: **She is the moth, and he is her unknowing flame…

She knows how the moth feels, having the time of its life singeing its wings on the unfeeling flame. Knowing that no one else knows the ecstasy of hovering half an instant from destruction, the moth lives its death. The others (blind watchers, she pities them) only see the senseless obsession with light that doesn't care. They only see the ridiculousness of brown wings fluttering to death. They can't see the suicidal hunger for life and _life_ that drives the moth on a nonsensical rush to its annihilation.

She is the moth, and he is her flame.

He doesn't even realize it. Doesn't even know _she _exists. And she wants it that way. Wants to watch him (in class, after school, at midnight as he smirks and vanishes in rose-coloured smoke and white wings) burn as bright as passion itself. Wants to feel the heat of his laughter and pain from an unsafe distance. As long as he never finds out, she is his moth. As long as he never finds out, he is her burning death.

She is terrified of living in his shadow, so she dies in his light.

Every day, every hour, she flies closer to destruction. One false move, one wrong word, and the charade that is her life will burst into ash. Faking birth certificates, lying on passports and forms, bribing school nurses, saying "male" when they ask her gender. In the papers, on the telly, in conversation, always 'he'. Hiding behind the ridiculousness of brown wings (outrageous tweed Inverness). Disguising passion as single-minded obsession (catching Kaitou KID.). Watching him from the edge of burning death (she almost-not-quite knows his secret, he doesn't know hers). And now, now, an end they would never have thought of when they decided to raise her as a boy (and too late, she remembers that it was for her own protection). The flame doesn't notice the moth so long as the moth is uninteresting to the flame.

She is the moth, burning to ash as she realizes the climax of her life.

The instant he finds out it is the instant after she realizes she pushed her luck a wing beat too far (pressed against him in the corner of the balcony, dressed like a girl for the first time in years). Therefore, she goes all the way to her destruction (stopping his whispered shock with her mouth on his. Letting the thief realize that he stole her soul). She never meant, never knew it would destroy him. She only wanted to live her life in a rush of wings and flame.

The candle, when it finally realizes that it has killed, flickers out under the weight of its unconscious actions...

**AN:**

_**Deviant: diverging sharply from a customary, traditional, or generally accepted standard, or displaying such divergent behavior**_

**This was somewhat of a stretch on the theme, but it works? **

… **So, I love to torment Hakuba. Yeah. I have Fem!Hakuba and Kaitou!Hakuba (wait for it, it's coming soon) So… (acts like a n00b) I really hope that this gets reviews… **

**Anyone want to beta for me? **


	4. Call

Title: Call

**Title: Call  
Fandom: DC  
Characters: Ran, Shinichi  
Prompt: #6 Promise**

**Word Count: 312  
Rating: T**

**Warnings: Char death…  
Author's Notes: See end…  
Summary: "It has been a while, hasn't it?" Her voice was steady, and it wasn't an act.**

"Ran?"

And she collapsed into the chair, one hand over her mouth. She hadn't heard that voice in years.

"Are you still there?"

She was surprised at how calm she felt. Her heart didn't flutter like it used too as she replied, "Yes. You startled me. I wasn't expecting to hear from you."

"Ah, yeah. Sorry I haven't called recently."

It had been ten years. The last time they had spoken, she had been nineteen. "It has been a while, hasn't it?" Her voice was steady, and it wasn't an act.

"Listen, I… that is… How do I say this?" The last part to himself. He tried again. "I'm sorry for your loss."

So formal. Even without honorifics, even with the intimate form of "you". The words didn't really mean anything to him. They were a formula, a way to acknowledge the changes and _changes_ that had happened to them in the interval.

"Thank you." So formal. A formula for polite conversation between friends, yes, loverseven who had drifted apart.

"I'm sorry I…"

I what? I left? I wasn't there? I lost you to a rival I hadn't even realized existed?

Once upon a time, she would have been able to hold a conversation like this, half phrases left unspoken because they knew the other would finish them. But that was once upon a time, and very far away from where they were now.

He tried again. "How are you?"

How did he think she was doing? "Fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

Another pause.

She couldn't take this. "Listen, Shinichi, I… I have to go."

"Oh. Alright. So you think that we could meet up sometime? Reminisce or something?"

She hung up.

He sat there holding the silent phone a moment longer. "I'm sorry."

And he raised the smooth barrel of the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

**AN: Yeah… I just killed off Shin-chan… I hate me sometimes. I honestly have no idea where this angst-fest came from.**

**So... totally ignoring the A/N backstory I had here before. Yeah. Let's just go with...**

**Shinichi hasn't been heard from in ten years, Ran gave up on him and married someone else (Ransuke is my OPT, but you can put whoever you want in there...) He has since died. Haven't made up my mind on if they have kids or not...**


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